Hulu Is Huge—But Is It Profitable?

Online video site Hulu hit a milestone — in December it streamed over a billion videos.

The latest numbers, out today from Comscore reveal that the number of videos Hulu streamed quadrupled from December 2008 to December 2009. And Hulu's unique visitors grew to over 44 million, up from just 24.5 million a year earlier.

Co-owned by Disney, NBC Universal, News Corp, and Providence Equity Partners, Hulu only launched in March 2008. Though its monthly traffic is roughly on par with what YouTube draws every single day, the company points out that it has become *the* destination for recent TV content

Hulu CEO Jason Kilar spoke to me exclusively about the big numbers. He refused to answer my question about whether Hulu is profitable, but check out the full interview for our discussions about the company's growth and revenues.

Rumors are swirling that Hulu will launch a paid system for TV shows and movies. Kilar acknowledges that they're investigating paid models, but insists that even if they do launch a paid model, Hulu will always have a free version. New devices like the iPad could change the game for Hulu, making it much easier to access the site's video on the go.

We'll see if Hulu starts making its videos available to consumers through their TV sets.